Late-night bar reborn as a green urban farm

Ireland’s first hospitality hydroponic urban farm in Killarney is growing nutritious salads and herbs for supply to hotels and restaurants

Chef Will Fitzgerald tends to the herbs, lettuces and fruit growing on vertical planters at the Killarney Urban Farm.  Photo: Don MacMonagle 

As a way of increasing access to fresh food in the future, vertical farming was under discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos in May. And it’s something that’s happening right now at a former late-night bar in Killarney. This is a way of growing plants indoors in tall layered containers, maximising the number of plants that can be grown in a limited - and sometimes unusual - space. It’s considered to be a sustainable food production method, using less land and water to produce more food.

Killarney Urban Farm is Ireland’s first in-house hospitality hydroponic urban farm. It grows salad leaves and herbs in vertical towers for supply to their own hotels and restaurants in the O’Donoghue Ring Collection, which includes Killarney’s Plaza Hotel, Towers Hotel, Avenue Hotel and River Island Hotel.